Here's the challenge of song-writing: when you write lyrics you're writing poetry. And people tend to read poetry as though it all has the same rhythm and the same vibe. But in fact, every poem has its own rhythm. Sometimes it's frantic and up-tempo and other times it's jumpy and swinging and other times it's slow and somber. And it's the songwriter's job to pick the right rhythm that sets the lyrics in their home, or contrasts them in some way. "I'm seventeen years old"—you want that to come out a certain way, you don't want to put that to a slow IV. I mean, you can. We actually have done this song slow, but for the platonic, initial look at the song I wanted something that conveyed the actual, in-the-moment speech rhythms.

Community is crucial to the Brassland ethos, albeit a different kind of community to the more traditional rock "scene". "Bands like Arcade Fire finding a larger audience has opened a lot of doors," Bryce says. "They've empowered a whole community in Montreal. The same is happening in Brooklyn. For the first four or five years of the National, interviewers, especially in Europe, used to say: 'You don't seem to be part of the New York scene,'" says Bryce. "Now we get: 'You seem like the centre of the New York scene.' Those things shift."

SR: I can't think of the title of it, but there was one tune on Radiohead's In Rainbows album that really knocked me out. I'm very impressed with the fact that there are a lot of young musicians like Jonny Greenwood, who originally trained as a violist, and reads music and is a composer, are also rock musicians. In the recording of my 2x5, the rock piece which was played live at the Barbican a couple of weeks ago, in that ensemble there's Bryce Dessner who is the guitarist in The National, who is a graduate of Rio School of Music, who has composed some very beautiful pieces… He really is a rock musician and he really is a classical musician. Same thing with Mark Stewart. He's the music director for Paul Simon and he's a regular guitarist for Bang On A Can. Monday he's a rock musician, Tuesday he's a classical musician. There are more and more people like this and I find that very exciting.